🔗 Share this article Marathon Viewing 2025's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures. ‘Tis the season to lounge on the sofa and consume a tin of mince pies in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific. As always, a crop of fresh seasonal stories hopes to be part of our festive viewing—perhaps even earning a place alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it). So, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the holiday mood, I watched as many new Christmas films as possible in a single day. 7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie Kicking off, optimistically, on a high. This is the sole 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the top 100 festive features of all time. The Jonas Brothers find themselves trapped in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an evil Santa, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.” The repartee between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the uninitiated, while followers will certainly catch lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using any means of transport necessary. It’s a travelogue of mishaps. It’s not an all-time classic, but is excellent for devotees and a good start to the day. Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who will have to sit through it. 8.45am - Tinsel Town A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland stars as a movie actor roped into a "panto". “A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose agent has misled him into thinking he’s performing in prestigious English theatre. His Aladdin fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. You can guess their reply. Except if you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions. There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too. It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at any other time of year, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas. Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄 10.19am - Christmas Karma A familiar face appears at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Might this become a new Christmas tradition? This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who collects Mr Sood, the modern take on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Mr Sood is played by a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative develops as the miserly Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George. This Indian Scrooge is at least distinct from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything. Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄 Noon: A BBC Special Before lunch for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.” But after he is awarded an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a family trip to Lapland. There’s just one snag—he learns there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to reimburse the remainder. Pleasant yet unmemorable. Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄 1.12pm - Champagne Problems This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the backdrop—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its main point—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same. High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. During her travels, she meets a man in a book store who offers to show her Christmas in Paris. A commentator recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the required heartwarming sensation. The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is notable too. Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄 Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, regardless of the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him otherwise. The answer is somewhere, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the assistance of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities. It’s low-key but sweet, and good viewing while expecting Santa to visit. Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄 4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun. Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering American family who reunite for the holidays—including other Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary. Pfeiffer starts by mentioning classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.” So that’s the premise, but in reality it’s really a jumble of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally comes into her own. Festive score: 🎄🎄 Formulaic Fun The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the packed genre of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food. It’s a tale as familiar as can be: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up discovering romance. In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher
‘Tis the season to lounge on the sofa and consume a tin of mince pies in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific. As always, a crop of fresh seasonal stories hopes to be part of our festive viewing—perhaps even earning a place alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it). So, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the holiday mood, I watched as many new Christmas films as possible in a single day. 7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie Kicking off, optimistically, on a high. This is the sole 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the top 100 festive features of all time. The Jonas Brothers find themselves trapped in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an evil Santa, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.” The repartee between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the uninitiated, while followers will certainly catch lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using any means of transport necessary. It’s a travelogue of mishaps. It’s not an all-time classic, but is excellent for devotees and a good start to the day. Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who will have to sit through it. 8.45am - Tinsel Town A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland stars as a movie actor roped into a "panto". “A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose agent has misled him into thinking he’s performing in prestigious English theatre. His Aladdin fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. You can guess their reply. Except if you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions. There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too. It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at any other time of year, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas. Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄 10.19am - Christmas Karma A familiar face appears at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Might this become a new Christmas tradition? This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who collects Mr Sood, the modern take on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Mr Sood is played by a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative develops as the miserly Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George. This Indian Scrooge is at least distinct from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything. Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄 Noon: A BBC Special Before lunch for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.” But after he is awarded an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a family trip to Lapland. There’s just one snag—he learns there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to reimburse the remainder. Pleasant yet unmemorable. Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄 1.12pm - Champagne Problems This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the backdrop—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its main point—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same. High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. During her travels, she meets a man in a book store who offers to show her Christmas in Paris. A commentator recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the required heartwarming sensation. The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is notable too. Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄 Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, regardless of the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him otherwise. The answer is somewhere, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the assistance of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities. It’s low-key but sweet, and good viewing while expecting Santa to visit. Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄 4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun. Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering American family who reunite for the holidays—including other Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary. Pfeiffer starts by mentioning classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.” So that’s the premise, but in reality it’s really a jumble of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally comes into her own. Festive score: 🎄🎄 Formulaic Fun The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the packed genre of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food. It’s a tale as familiar as can be: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up discovering romance. In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher